A Voice in Ramah
by Tiamat's Child
Summary: Homunculus has plans Hohenheim does not share. Mangaverse. Spoilers for manga chapters 74 & 75.


**Title: **A Voice in Ramah**  
Author:** Tiamat's Child**  
Fandom:** Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)**  
Word Count:** 1378**  
Rating:** T**  
Characters/Pairing:** Hohenheim, Homunculus**  
Summary:** Homunculus has plans Hohenheim does not share.**  
Warnings:** Spoilers for manga chapters 74 & 75, with all the attendant creep and disturbing content.**  
Notes:** Written for fma_fic_contest at LJ, Prompt 21: "Metamorphosis". It took third place, and has been cleaned up a bit since.

**A Voice in Ramah**

Hohenheim had never liked seeing other people in distress. It had always frightened him, made him want to help, to fix the pain, to soothe the hurt, to solve the problem, to bind up the wound, tend the scratches, sit and listen to the sorrow that came out in the things that were not said, the subjects left lying untouched on the table. Sympathy made him sick on punishment days, when every one was called up and those who had broken rules were given lashes. He'd rarely been punished himself, even before Homunculus taught him to read, but he hated those days, lived through the mornings of them weighted with dread shoved down as far as he could make it go.

He'd always felt as if other people's pain got loose and crawled under his skin and made him hurt too. He'd always felt that. Now it was true and he could not run away from it, he could not pull out a chair and lean forward, steady and still, the way he had learned to be. He could not reach out a hand, could not run for the doctor, could not run for the bandages, for poppy and alcohol. He could not, he could not, there was too much pain, half a city's worth of pain, and it was inside and everyone was screaming, crying, sobbing, and he wanted to sob too, but there was too much and he could not muster the voice, could not find his breath, could only kneel in a crumpled heap against the rail of the balcony, his hands half hiding his face, staring up at Homunculus, who smiled down at him as if it were an ordinary day and he wasn't wearing Hohenheim's face.

"Too much?" Homunculus asked, and the sympathy in his voice terrified Hohenheim. He choked. "You're fine," Homunculus said, "you know how to handle that. Take a deep breath. Make it slow."

Hohenheim obeyed, as he had obeyed only a moment before, when Homunculus told him to close his eyes and focus inward. Obeying Homunculus, trusting him to have his best interests in mind, no matter how he teased and no matter how sardonic or cynical the comments he made, had become a habit, and more than a habit. It had become something he depended on.

Half the city, half the _country_ was screaming in him. He should never have obeyed Homunculus. He had always done what Homunculus had said. He trusted, and Homunculus used him to stand at the center of the circle. He gasped.

"That's not it, Hohenheim," Homunculus scolded, sharper now, the way he was when Hohenheim wasn't getting some overly complicated rule of grammar. "You know this. Don't tell me you forgot."

Hohenheim dropped his hands and glared at him. He wanted to stop breathing just to spite him. _Kill me_, said a voice, _kill me_. And _kill me_ said another. _Kill me_, there were too many of them to pick apart, too many, and the voices were all starting to sound like his own voice, like he wanted his breath to stop for _himself_ not just as some form of petty defiance.

Hohenheim had never wanted to die before. It frightened him even more, made him dizzy. He shut his eyes and breathed deep. Slow, as even as he could. "That's right," Homunculus said, familiar purr of approval in his voice. "Again."

He didn't want to, he didn't want to do what Homunculus said, but there was the fact of him being right. Hohenheim took another breath, deeper, less thready this time. "Again," said Homunculus, and Hohenheim opened his eyes.

Homunculus was watching him, slight curve of a smile tilting up his mouth that looked just like Hohenheim's. But Hohenheim didn't think he'd ever smiled like that, and he was quite certain he'd never looked at anyone the way Homunculus was looking at him, as if he owned every breath Hohenheim took, owned the breath he took now, steady, even, even with the multitude of people shouting inside him, a lament that could have overturned the stones of the city if it had been raised aloud. "This is wrong," he said. As he spoke, the enormity of it struck him, and he wanted to take it back, say it some other way, but there was no way to say it. There was no way to say it but what was in him, thundering in his blood, pressed back just far enough to be almost borne, but there nonetheless, and that was in Homunculus, too, speaking. He could not speak more eloquently than the people of the Xerxes could. "This is evil."

Homunculus acted as if he hadn't spoken, straightening up and smiling serenely, possessively down at him. "By the sun we were both out for some hours, and you look glassy. You should get out of the heat. Have some water."

"No," said Hohenheim. He pressed his hand flat against the stone, flat as it would go, flat until the heat of the emerging day pressed back, uncomfortably warm on his skin.

Homunculus folded his arms and cocked his head. It was disorienting, and Hohenheim knew that Homunculus was right, that he should get out of the heat, that he should have water. "You know this better than I do," Homunculus said. "Sun stroke won't kill you now, but it won't be fun. Do you want to spend the next several days flat on your back, too ill to do more than take water in small sips? It could still happen."

"No," Hohenheim said again. He could not say yes to Homunculus again, even if Homunculus was right. He had let Homunculus have his trust and more of his mind than he had ever given to anyone. He had let himself rest in Homuculus's orders, in his words, in his will, as he had never rested in his master's, never rested in anyone else's. He had drifted, floated, had not realized that Homunculus thought that Hohenheim was _his_, completely his, far more his than he was his master's, because Hohenheim had given himself to Homunculus with no threat of the lash to compel him.

Hohenheim was not going to be Homunculus's any more.

"Hmmmm," Homunculus said. Hohenheim looked up at him, reeling still, feeling strange and unfocused despite the tormented roar inside him. He felt like something inside him was going away. Just a little ways. Just for long enough to get him through the overwhelming fear that had taken the ground away. Homunculus looked down him, slowly, and then he looked back up, slowly, and his smile changed, indulgence came into it, softened the open arrogance, made him look younger, closer to how old Hohenheim actually was. Hohenheim lifted his chin.

Homunculus laughed. "All right," he said. "Come in when you're ready. Don't kill yourself digging graves. Not," he added, with a smaller, more private chuckle, meeting Hohenheim's gaze as if they were sharing a special joke between them, "that you could."

He raised a hand as he walked away, back into the cool shadows of the corridors. "I'll be waiting, Hohenheim," he said, loudly enough that Hohenheim could hear him even though he did not turn. "We have a lot to talk about, you and I."

Hohenheim did not answer him. Hohenheim was not going to talk to him. He had talked to Homunculus too much already.

He stood, and turned, and ran down the steps, across the plaza, into the city. He could not stay. He knew he could not stay, there was a sea of fear in him, and he knew he was right to listen to it, to leave, to run beyond the city gates and not stop until he was far away as the world could take him.

Homunculus had asked him once if he meant to live the rest of his life in a flask. He did not mean to. He did not mean to, and he would not become a flask either, he would not be a prison with bars of bone and walls of flesh.

_Help me_, cried a voice, and as Hohenheim shut the watchman's gate behind him he said, out loud, "It's all right, it's all right, I only want to talk."


End file.
